THIRTY-YEAR-OLD CAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21360, 13 June 1931, Page 2

THIRTY-YEAR-OLD CAR

TOO SACRED TO BE SOLD BURNED NEAR A CEMETERY. Here lies a Motor ear, Born 1900, Smashed 1931. It was too tired even to retyre. “ This would be a fitting epitaph for a tombstone that may be erected just outside the confines of Plymouth Cemetery,’ says a London newspaper. Beneath it will be all that remains of a car for 30 years the faithful servant of Dr Francis Pearse, of Plymouth. “It is no use to me now, but I can no more sell it than a man can part with a faithful old horse," the doctor said to the writer. “ I have arranged with a builder to have it buried’ on land adjoining Plymouth Cemetery, after having it battered to pieces. A friend of mine has promised to pronounce a funeral oration.” The car was the first motor vehicle ever driven through the streets of Plymouth. It was last used in 1928 in the London to Brighton race for a half-crown bet. Dr “Pearse might have kept his oldtimer still longer, but he refuses to pay the annual rate of £3 10s levied by the City Council on the lean-to garage in which he has housed it. He has offered the car to the local museum, but it has

no room for it.